On the cusp of Great Lent, we are called to three challenges. All three challenges have one thing in common. We are called to forgive, fast and be generous, all to prepare our hearts for God. Great Lent isn’t about food and prostration. Great Lent is about changing our hearts for God.
My brothers and sisters. Today is known as the Sunday of Forgiveness. This is the final day in our preparation for the great fast and holy Lent that begins actually tonight, but we say tomorrow. And I just want to remind you where we’ve been in this season of preparing our hearts and our souls for God and preparing ourselves for this great journey. Remember the first week we talked about the Publican and the Pharisee, we talked about the importance of humility. Then we talked about the prodigal son and returning to God and how joyful God is when we return to him, and then, last week we talked on the Sunday of Judgment about how our actions need to become actions of love toward other people. And today, Christ calls us to one of the highest challenges I believe my brothers and sisters for us human beings, the Gospel begins today with the challenge of forgiveness.
He says, “If you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not, neither will your father forgive your trespasses.” My brothers and sisters, our salvation rests in our hearts and how we are able to forgive. You see, my brothers and sisters, forgiveness is not just saying a few words. Okay, you’re fine, no problem. Our salvation rests in our hearts being able to totally let go of whatever anyone has said or done to us. Now, I know I’m only 57 this year. That’s young for some of you and old for others. But at 57, I know that forgiveness is probably among the hardest things for us to do as Christians because what we like to do is we like to hold onto something to use it later. Don’t you remember what you said to me in 1976?
You’re laughing, but it’s true. We hold on to things in our hearts and all it does is torture us. All it does is weigh us down, holding onto the resentment and not truly forgiving in our hearts, my brothers and sisters will torture us for all eternity. Remember the older brother and the prodigal son. He refused to forgive his brother. This, my brothers and sisters is our great challenge today. Before we enter the great fast, before we enter Great Lent to truly from our hearts learn to forgive. And I’m going to give you a hint. The only way to forgive genuinely from our hearts is to accept that we are no better than anybody else. Because we need forgiving and we know we don’t want people to hold it against us.
I’m here to tell you the hint is if you want to learn how to forgive, accept the fact that your no better than anyone else. And then, you can realize it’s no big deal, we can survive, we can live, we can be in harmony, we can reconcile with each other. We can truly live the union that God has called us to, but not so long as we live superior to each other. So that’s the first challenge in this morning’s Gospel, the challenge to genuine forgiveness and the warning that if we do not forgive, God will not forgive us. If that’s not incentive enough, I don’t know what is. But we’re going to move on to item number two, fasting.
My brothers and sisters, we began the fast for meat last week. The church slowly brings us into this environment of fasting. I gave to you some basic instructions in the bulletin on how physically to handle the fast. But I want to share with you the importance, not about the food, but about the purpose. First of all, this is what I hear all the time. “Father, it’s not what goes into your mouth, it’s what comes out of your mouth.” Do you know no one ever says that to me and controls their mouth? We use that excuse merely because we don’t want to fast, but fasting isn’t about the food and this is why we get so wrapped up into it. We get so wrapped up into reading the ingredients. Yes, by the way, Oreo cookies, the original are Lenten.
The other brands of Oreos are not by the way. If you’re worried about searching the ingredients list, you haven’t figured out the purpose of fasting. This is why Christ says when you fast, not if, when you fast, he says, do not be like the hypocrites who with a sad countenance. Oh, I’m fasting. Please bring me some raw broccoli. They disfigure their faces. Assuredly I say to you, they have reward, but you, when you fast anoint your head and wash your face so that you do not appear to men to be fasting. We are called by God to fast not to perform some checklist so that others say, oh, what good Christians they are. We’re called to fast, my brothers and sisters to change our hearts.
And I’m here to tell you that if we don’t want to fast, then we’re not going to learn how to tune our hearts to God’s will. Remember what Christ says in the Gospel of Mark, “Whoever desires to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me.” When we fast, we learn how to deny ourselves, how to put ourselves second to God. And so the fast my brothers and sisters, uses food to teach us to want God more than we want ourselves. It’s been one week since I’ve had my double bacon cheeseburger.
Yes, I’m craving it already, but I have to remind myself, do I love God enough to not eat it? That’s what fasting is about, changing our hearts not about ingredients. We use the ingredients to accomplish something greater. And then, our third category, which is an important one for us, especially as Americans. “Do not lay up yourselves treasures on earth.” My brothers and sisters, especially as Americans, but as all human beings, we are obsessed with stuff. There’s entire TV shows on cable television about hoarders. You walk into their house and you can’t even walk from the door to the kitchen because it is filled with stuff. Good stuff, bad stuff, old stuff, new stuff. We’re always collecting and gathering stuff. There are even some of you who have not yet scheduled a house blessing because you haven’t been able to put your stuff away for the priest to be able to get into the house.
And Christ says, “Don’t pile up your stuff.” Moth, rust, it all gets destroyed, we’re not going to have it tomorrow, let alone today. For those of you who lost everything in the hurricane, you know this more than anybody. Stuff is just stuff. But Christ says, “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” So, if you want your heart to be with God, bring your treasure to God and other people. Remember, last week we talked about serving other people. If we want our heart to love like God loves, then we will learn to use our stuff, our money, and our time to bless other people, and we will bring it to the church so the church can do the work that it has to do to bring the faith of Christ to the universe.
So you see my brothers and sisters, when we begin the fast tomorrow, it’s not about how many candles we light, it’s not about how many prostrations we do, those are important, but it’s about our hearts. And I invite you this year to make our great Lenten journey about changing our hearts to be more like God, to love like God, to serve like God, to forgive like God, and then, seven weeks from now, we will enjoy the great celebration of Pascha, the great joy of Christ coming and defeating all of our struggles. But our hearts have to be ready and it begins today. Glory to God, for All Things.
